Moving On
by Augustus
Summary: Moving on isn't as easy as Patrick had hoped (One Foot In The Grave)


  


**Moving On**  
_Moving on isn't as easy as Patrick had hoped_

AUTHOR: Augustus  
EMAIL: gaius_octavius_@hotmail.com  
WEB ADDY: http://rimmer.alphalink.com.au  
FANDOM: One Foot In The Grave  
PAIRING: None. Any slashiness herein is merely what is already contained in the show... *eg*  
RATING: G  
CATEGORY: Hopefully it's vaguely humorous in a Patrick sort of way, yet kinda bittersweet in a OFITG sort of way. Yeah, I know, big ask!  
FEEDBACK: Much appreciated. Be as harsh or detailed as you feel necessary.   
SPOILERS: A few for the special "The Wisdom of the Witch". If you haven't seen it, Patrick and Pippa move house, without much help from Victor, a homicidal boyfriend and a blizzard.  
SUMMARY: Moving on isn't as easy as Patrick had hoped.  
NOTES: I don't know how many of you will have seen this show, but watching it today, Patrick's character was just screaming at me to attempt it. I don't know if I've pulled it off, but hey - that's what this task is about!  
DISCLAIMER: One Foot in the Grave and its characters belong to David Renwick and the BBC. This is what you get for killing off my hero *lol*  
CREDITS: Thanks to Mez for the Beta and character-check *hugs*

Patrick should have known that he wouldn't escape as easily as it had first seemed he might. After all, nothing came easily when you lived next door to a madman. Not that he _did_, any more, if you could count an unfurnished, unlit house as a swanky new abode. New house or not, it seemed as though Mr. Meldrew may well resemble a stain that had to fade away over time, rather than just your usual smear. Mr. Meldrew... It struck Patrick as a little foolish to keep up the pretence of formality when the man in question had seen him running down the hallway screaming blue buggery and wearing nothing but a worn pair of tartan boxer shorts. Victor, then. Victor of the cowpat-encrusted wellingtons and the man-eating arachnids. Victor: the bane of his existence.

It was meant to be over by now. Patrick and Pippa should have been tucked up in their own, familiar bed in new, but cosy, surroundings. A cup of hot cocoa before bed and he would have slept like a baby or, at least, a miniature daschund accustomed to being treated as one. Even a mildly sleepless night would have been a thousand times preferable to this... this... 

Words couldn't describe the day Patrick had experienced. Perhaps if his trials had been limited merely to fending off an axe-yielding jealous boyfriend, he would have taken it all in his stride, without so much as a surprised blink. Add in Victor Meldrew, however, and a stride quickly became a stumble, which rapidly degenerated in a full, somersaulting tumble down ancient stairs. The headache was the least of his worries now. If he ever managed to get to sleep, the morning would only bring the realisation that it wasn't over after all, and probably never would be.

Although in times of whimsy he had dreamed of a clean break, of waking up every morning to the sound of birdsong, rather than the refrain of "I don't _believe_ it!" wafting through the walls, Patrick supposed he'd never truly dared hope the dream might, one day, be realised. It was a good thing, really, considering how much of a cock-up his attempt at escape had turned out to be. Just another example of life tripping you up before kicking you in the unmentionables, Patrick had decided. If not life in general, then at least life in the vicinity of the Meldrews.

That horrible hotel seemed almost like a particularly malevolent dream, now. Fading away at the edges like it was, it was easy to fool himself that it would have been better if they had stayed. Sure, they would have been the flies in the web of a perverted, modern-day equivalent to Big Brother, but at least they would have been miles away from Victor's influence. Miles away from Edwin...

What sort of lunatic would keep a spider as a pet, anyway? The sort of lunatic related to the lunatic-next-door, presumably. The fact that the tie was only one of marriage proved nothing but the propensity of the insane to seek out similar additions to the family. If he thought seriously about it, Patrick supposed he should have expected _something_ horrendous to be found within the residence of any relative of Victor's. Such thoughts hadn't been forefront in his mind on arrival, however, as he worked at his joints to try to remove the cricks and pains from two hours solid travelling in the boot of the Meldrew sedan. Two hours with his head welded to a whiffy wellington while a meat pie got fresh with his inner thigh were enough to make _any_ home seem a sanctum. 

A sanctum with giant, bird-eating spiders, so it would seem. A normal man would have warned his guests about the possibility of snuggling up to a behemoth specimen of arachnid in the middle of the night but normal was not a word with which one would generally describe Victor Meldrew. When Patrick had felt gentle, teasing pressure on his leg, he'd simply thought it was Pippa getting a little frisky, thanks to the earlier moustache removal ceremony. It was only when he noticed the unusual _hairiness_ of his wife's fingers that Patrick had begun to think that something might just be a small leap away from the desirable side of affairs. As he ran screaming down the hall a few horrible seconds later, Patrick wasn't so far removed from thought as to miss noticing the less-than-surprised expression on Victor's face as he hurried to remove the hirsute assailant.

Oh, he'd been all apologies afterwards; Patrick couldn't fault him on that account. But then, it seemed apologies always formed a part of the equation when time was spent in the older man's company. Apologies, sheepish looks, a broken bone or two... if Patrick had been another man, he might have contemplated the possibility of actually _missing_ the routine once it was over. There was no way that Patrick would miss the company of his tyrannical arch-enemy, however. The sooner that the snowstorm stopped, the sooner that he and Pippa could be on their way and he could begin to erase this whole damn mess from his mind. A mess that seemed to have begun the day Victor Meldrew became his next-door-neighbour.

No, there was nothing to miss in the hourly shouts of derision, or the regular clattering of hurled abuse at a volume just loud enough to wake Patrick from the more pleasant of his dreams. Nothing to miss in conversations over the garden fence that undoubtedly involved missing body parts or incinerated pets. And, if last night they had managed a quiet moment of near-friendship over a bottle of whisky and a backgammon set, then that was just something to be pushed into the realms of memory, along with the more painful moments of their acquaintance. Because missing anything about Victor would be almost like admitting defeat. And that was a much scarier prospect for Patrick than _any_ number of bird-eating spiders.

****

© Augustus 11-07-2001  
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